Power to all households by March next year: R K Singh

The Union government is on course to ensure uninterrupted power supply to all households by March next year, Power Minister R K Singh said.

If the NDA government does meet its deadline of taking electricity to all houses by around the time of the next Lok Sabha polls, it could give the BJP a poll plank.

Singh said their target is to make available power supply to four crore households by March 31 next year. As of now, he said, 29.33 houses have been connected with power.

Among the over 18,000 unelectrified villages, only 935 remain so, he said. The minister said the government is also working on a law to ensure that there is no “gratuitous load shedding” and households are provided uninterrupted power barring when there is a technical problem.

On the government’s efforts to boost use of electric vehicles, he said various ministries and departments will be getting these cars in the coming months.

The power ministry will soon come out with a policy for setting up charging stations in cities as it works to boost the use of these cars to curb pollution and reduce India’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, said Singh, who is also the Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy.

By 2030, the government wants 30 per cent vehicles on roads to be electric, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often spoken about his government’s efforts to take electricity to every households and any success on this front will come handy for the BJP as it gears up for the next Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for March-May next year.moneycontrol